Fireworks
by Siraa Demented
Summary: Just after TWC. Jade confronts Tori about the almost-kiss between her and Beck. She tells Beck he can kiss Tori to figure out his feelings between the two, but Beck realizes Tori just doesn't have the same fireworks. Sucky summary.


"I'm so bored," Beck groaned as he lay back on Andre's floor, staring at the ceiling. Andre rolled his eyes.

"I've heard." He replied, annoyed. He was sitting on his couch, scuffing the ground with his shoe.

Robbie appeared from the kitchen. "I found Uno!" He said in a (slightly forced) excited way. Beck closed his eyes.

"That's great." He said exasperatedly. Robbie huffed and sat on the floor. "Well, I'm just trying to figure out what to do!"

"Why don't we invite the girls?" Andre suggested eventually.

"Northridge?" Rex asked hopefully. "No. I mean Tori, Cat and Jade." Andre responded, rolling his eyes.

"Oh. Well, they're cool too, I guess." Robbie said unenthusiastically. "Except for Jade." Rex added. Beck opened one eye to glare at Robbie, who shrugged. "It was him, not-" Beck grabbed the puppet by one plastic hand and flung him in the general direction of his feet. "Rex!" Robbie shouted, standing up and running to him. "He hit his head on the table!" He said frantically. Beck snorted.

"You mean your puppet hit its head on the table." He said, sounding slightly irritated.  
"Don't call him a puppet! It's an offensive term!" Robbie yelled. Beck dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand and an annoyed "Whatever."

"So, we gonna invite the girls or what?" Andre asked after a minute. Beck breathed in deeply before sighing, "Oh, yeah." He didn't move for a moment, then he sat up and pulled out his phone, leaning his back against the couch.

To: Lil' Lady

From: Beck

Hey babe, at Andre's - bored 2 death. Cum ovr?

It was only after he'd clicked 'send' that he realized he had called her babe.

"Text from Beck," Jade announced to Tori and Cat as they sat in a circle on Tori's family room floor.

"Ooh, what's it say?" Cat asked excitedly, clapping. Jade opened the text and read, "Hey babe," Her and Tori both raised their eyebrows at this. Was Beck forgetting that they were no longer Hollywood Art's 'it' couple? She continued, "At Andre's, bored to death, come over." She snorted. "Wow, I have to give him some points for his articulate English." She said sarcastically. Tori giggled nervously.

"So, are we going to- I mean, do you want to?" She asked cautiously. Jade rolled her eyes.

"Tori, I can handle it. It's not like he killed me." Or ripped my heart out, tore it into thousands of pieces, and wasted nearly four years of my life, she added in her head.

"You're sure, Jadey?" Cat asked quietly. She played with her hair and stared at the carpet as she asked the question.

"Well, I'm not dead, am I?" Jade quipped as she stood up (perhaps too quickly), grabbed her jacket, and headed for the door.

Twenty minutes later, there was a loud staccato knock on Andre's door. He opened the door to see Cat leaning against the door frame as though she were posing for a picture. "Hi!" She said happily, still in her odd photo pose.

"Hey there, lil' Red." He greeted her awkwardly. She beamed and threw her arms around him.

"Where's Jade and Tori?" He asked her as she released her hold on him and flounced over to the couch to plop down next to Robbie. Her smile faded oh-so-slightly.

"They're on their way." She answered quietly. Just as she said the words, the door flew open to reveal a very heated Jade stomping away from Tori, who was rushing after her in a panic.

"I'm fine, Tori!" Jade yelled as she spun around to face the youngest Vega, her face flushed with anger.

"I really didn't know you would ever find out about it, though! It was just a spur-of-the-moment type thing, you know?"

"Stop, Tori! I don't care! I wasn't trying to get an apology, I just wanted to know what was going on between you! It's over!" Jade shouted, falling onto the couch.

"Okay..." Tori said doubtfully.

"Okay!" Jade snapped back.

It was silent for a moment before Beck finally said awkwardly, "So what are we talking about here?"

"Nothing-" Tori said quickly before she was cut off by Jade.

"Oh, we were just talking about that one time during Platinum Awards when you tried to kiss her." Jade told him in a would-be casual voice. Beck froze and turned white.

"You did what?!" Andre and Robbie yelled. Jade chuckled sardonically.

"Guessing he didn't tell you guys either?" She said coldly.

"Jade. I'm sorry, I just-" Beck began cautiously. He flinched when Jade turned towards him. He couldn't remember he last time he had been on the receiving end of her glare. It wasn't a pleasant experience.

"Save it, Beck." She practically hissed. Beck closed his eyes.

"Please listen to me!" He yelled, standing up. Jade shrunk back into the couch and Beck felt a pang of regret at how she seemed to actually be scared of him. "I'm not going to hurt you, Jade." He told her, sitting next to her on the couch. She edged away from him and he could see the fear in her eyes. Because he was lying, of course. He had already hurt her.

"I'm not gonna lie, I don't know why I did it either. I think..." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I think I had a lot of reasons. We had just broken up, and I was kind of... Lonely, I guess. And I thought, maybe if I dated Tori, I wouldn't be lonely anymore. It was just kind of weird coming home everyday and the RV was empty, I was just there. It was suffocating me. And I had always dated you, it kind of made me wonder what it would be like to date a nice girl that smiled all the time and laughed at everything- no offense, Tori-"

"None taken?" Tori said uncertainly, not sure why that would be offensive.

"And I had to know, Jade, what it was like to kiss someone who wasn't acting on a script, who genuinely meant it."

"What about every time we kissed? Are you saying I never meant any of-"

"Who wasn't you! I had to know if... If it was any different... You were my first kiss and the only one I ever kissed off-stage. I had to know if it was different."

"And was it?" Jade snapped, though her eyes were bloodshot and glittering.

"I don't know, you saw it, you know she pulled away!" He responded irritatedly.

"Then kiss her."

"What?!" Everyone else in the room yelled at the same time. "You want me to kiss him?!" Tori asked hysterically. Jade nodded slowly, breathing shallowly. Tori blinked several times before Beck stood up, taking a few steps towards her. Tori stared at Jade. "Are you sure, Jade?" She asked uncertainly. Jade nodded again, a tear clinging to her eyelashes.

"If that's what he needs to- to figure out- stuff-" She choked. Beck forced himself not to look at her, knowing that he would never be able to kiss Tori if he did.

Tori took the final few steps towards him and leaned forward. Their lips met uncertainly. She moved her hands to his shoulders but his hand remained awkwardly at his sides. After a few moments she pulled away. Beck blinked a few times, staring at some point above her head.

He was pulled back to reality when Jade made a loud squeak and suddenly dove into the pillows on the couch. He rushed back to her and sat, pulling her onto his lap. She resisted weakly before she just wrapped her arms around him and cried into his chest. "Shh..." He said quietly, petting her hair.

It was a few minutes before she calmed down enough to sit up and wipe her eyes. "So did it answer your question?" She hiccoughed, her eyes red and swollen.

"Yeah, it did." Beck answered.

"And?" Jade questioned anxiously, her eyes wide and scared.

"It was definitely very different than kissing you." Beck said quietly, looking down at his knees. Jade closed her eyes. Beck looked back at her and brushed her hair behind her ear. "There weren't the fireworks." He told her, a hint of smile playing over his lips.

Jade looked up at him, shocked. He smiled comfortingly and wiped away her running mascara. She blinked her long black eyelashes over her startling blue eyes and Beck was reminded blindingly of why he fell in love with her to start with.

He leaned in and her eyes fluttered closed yet again as his lips met hers. She smiled into him and he could feel the electricity coursing through him. He brought one hand around her waist, trying to pull her even closer, as his other hand tangled in her hair, relishing the black silk as he had so many times before. She rested her hands on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. His tongue slipped into her mouth and she returned the favor gladly, tilting her head to the other side to try to get even deeper. She was disappointed when his tongue withdrew into his mouth and she slowly pulled away, blinking up at him.

"You still love me?" She asked him quietly, smiling sweetly.

"I'll never stop." He replied, pulling her into his arms.

"Aww!" Cat sighed happily from the other side of the couch. "Everything's happy again."

Jade laughed contentedly. "Yeah, it sure is."


End file.
